Priority Area 1: Engage and educate Kansas stakeholders on Justice Reinvestment policies and legislation to promote oversight and sustainability.
Update: In April, the Kansas legislature passed three additional JRI bills, bringing the total number of bills enacted to seven. This effort was largely championed by Representative Owens, who deftly maneuvered some KCJRC recommendations into other combined bills. Two of these bills were signed by Governor Kelly on April 18, 2022, and the third will be signed by the governor in early May:
• HB 2631 – Expands opportunities for specialty courts by requiring court rules for consistent operation and establishing a funding advisory committee to allocate resources. It also allows for expungement after program completion. This bill was approved by the governor on April 18.
• SB 408 (Formerly HB 2654) – Provides guidance to determine how people under the supervision of two or more supervision agencies can have supervision consolidated into one agency. This bill was approved by the governor on April 18.
• SB366 (Formerly 2515) – Provides a mechanism for people to seek relief from registration requirements for people convicted of drug offenses. This bill was enrolled and presented to the governor on April 27.
Additionally, in April, CSG Justice Center staff meet with Cheryl Rios (Judge, District 11) to discuss the KCJRC’s recommendations and receive input on implementing changes administratively. During the call, Judge Rios offered CSG Justice Center staff the opportunity to speak at the Kansas District Judges Association (KDJA) meeting in July in Emporia, KS. This will provide CSG Justice Center staff with the means to connect with judges on a wider scale at an in-person event and share the goals of administrative implementation. It will also help facilitate judicial engagement efforts in the state.
Throughout April, several meetings were focused on the subaward application. CSG Justice Center staff connected with Scott Schultz (Executive Director, Kansas Sentencing Commission) and representatives from the Kansas Sentencing Commission’s (KSSC’s) IT contractor, Domo Inc., to discuss the data needs of the Sentencing Commission and to gain further insight on the prices quoted. The information provided by Domo helped inform a budget for the subaward application. Additional subaward meetings involved Hope Cooper (Deputy Secretary of Juvenile and Adult Community-Based Services, Kansas Department of Corrections) and Jonathan Ogletree (Chair, Prisoner Review Board [PRB]). KDOC and PRB subaward requests include data system upgrades and equipment improvements.
Priority Area 2: Assist Kansas with monitoring progress, collecting data, and tracking outcomes associated with JRI policies.
Update: In April, CSG Justice Center staff met with Scott Schultz (Executive Director, Kansas Sentencing Commission) and John Grube (Director of Research, Kansas Sentencing Commission) to identify metrics for data monitoring and understand where those metrics are collected and reported. During the call, it was determined that the KSSC can provide metrics for SB 123 pre-conviction and post-conviction stats, although it remains unclear how quickly the data can be provided. During Kansas’s last round of JRI in 2013, KSSC submitted all the state’s data monitoring information. However, KSSC does not have the necessary data for all the new JRI policy changes, and CSG Justice Center staff determined that KDOC will also need to regularly report data monitoring information. Therefore, CSG Justice Center staff approached KDOC to get a better understanding of the data they have available. This work will be ongoing over the next couple of months.
Priority Area 3: Improve the community supervision system by creating efficiencies, consistency, coordination, and collaboration between OJA, KDOC, and Community Corrections entities.
Update: In April, CSG Justice Center staff continued meeting with stakeholders to discuss forwarding recommendations outlined by the KCJRC and forming a collaborative body to tackle community supervision changes. Previously, Deputy Secretary Hope Cooper shared that she would like to begin efforts following the legislative session in case anything passes or shifts legislatively. In the meantime, CSG Justice Center staff worked to identify participants for collaboratively working on supervision changes, including representatives from KDOC, the PRB, and OJA; Community Corrections leaders; chief Court Services officers; and chief district judges. When meeting with stakeholders, CSG Justice Center staff discussed the goals of the collaborative group and when to begin moving forward with administrative tasks.
CSG Justice Center staff began to plan a site visit in either May or June to build relationships with key stakeholders and facilitate an in-person collaborative meeting among all three supervision entities to work on the administrative tasks outlined in the KCJRC’s report as well as implement the new dual supervision legislation.
Priority Area 4: Implement standardized general conditions of supervision and utilize a risk, need, responsivity (RNR) framework to select special conditions of supervision.
Update: In April, CSG Justice Center staff continued to discuss buy-in for standardized conditions of supervision with stakeholders and plan for future engagement with judges and supervision entities to increase support for adopting administrative policies to support KCJRC recommendations. Unfortunately, the legislation that contained KCJRC’s recommendations for standardizing general conditions of supervision did not move forward in the legislative session. CSG Justice Center staff will collaborate with the Center for Effective Public Policy (CEPP) to support administrative changes to conditions of supervision. This work will also be a part of the collaborative supervision group discussed in Priority Area 3.
Priority Area 5: Engage with KDOC and KDADS to improve reentry and behavioral health services for people in the criminal justice system.
Update: CSG Justice Center staff and KDADS have engaged with Policy Research Associates (PRA) to begin the planning stages of hosting a statewide Sequential Intercept Model (SIM) summit, scheduled for June 15. KDADS is planning a parallel SIM Summit for intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), and CSG Justice Center and PRA staff worked to ensure the JRI SIM efforts are additive and coordinated with this separate summit. The SIM summit will help provide recommendations and best practices on how the state can support and uplift services that help people living with a mental health condition, substance use disorder, or co-occurring disorders, aligning with the KCJRC’s work in 2020 and 2021.
New Insights: In April, CSG Justice Center Stepping Up staff facilitated the chief justice’s KS Mental Health Summit. The summit created great momentum in the state for judges, mental health providers, prosecutors, and defense attorneys to continue conversations related to bettering cross-system work between the behavioral health and criminal justice fields. As a result of the summit’s success, Judge Wonnell hopes to create 31 district workgroups called the Statewide Multi-Branch Community of Practice.
Press Clips:
Kansas’ shortage of behavioral health experts exacerbates community treatment challenges
Governor signs new budget to increase funding for mental health, law enforcement, education in Kansas
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